Bright
by Muzzle
Summary: Orochimaru at 6 is smarter than Jiraiya at 18, but it wasn't like Jiraiya was on the fast track to the University of Tokyo before this evening.


**AU, no spoilers, slashy happenings, no claims of ownership**

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* * *

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"You're not very good at this."

"Like you're Mr. Perfect." Mostly, Jiraiya wants to shove his pen down Orochimaru's throat, but then he'd have nothing to massacre his homework with, so he settles for scowling. Sarutobi had said he wouldn't let Jiraiya on the mat until he completed the next five kanji on his place card, only Jiraiya can barely remember the row he did last week.

"What you fail to understand," Orochimaru says, and then sweeps the pen from his fingers, and everything he does is always so _soft_, like a girl, "is that kanji are not meaningless scribbles, even in your lamentable hand."

Jiraiya doesn't know what "lamentable" means, but it doesn't sound like something a six year old should know.

Orochimaru says, "They are ideas," and draws from the page as if it had been lying in wait the same graceful character whose stature Jiraiya has been trying to imitate for the past hour. "It will not only not harm you, but benefit you to think about them. Moku _is_ the tree, adapted for brushwork and evolved over generations from the oracle bones of the Middle Kingdom to Tokyo's neon lights." Under Orochimaru's hand grows a bold trunk and sweeping branches in inkstone black.

He says, "Nichi _is _the sun. Getsu_ is _the moon. And together"— Jiraiya can't figure them out their own, he hasn't even considered putting them together yet –"they are bright."

They look like black lines on squared practice paper to Jiraiya. "Why don't you go bother someone else?"

There are five other kids in the class, two girls and three more boys who look almost as confused as Jiraiya.

"You really aren't very good at this," Orochimaru says again, and then Sarutobi comes into the study and tells them it's time to go home.

**Bright**

There is one reason and one reason only that Jiraiya attends Sarutobi's dojo**.**

Well, four really.

The first is this: Jiraiya is an active child. He knows this because it says so in the weekly letters home. Not that he can _read _them, of course, because after forcing iroha down his students' throats, his teacher writes in a seriesof complicated pictures that Jiraiya has never learned. He recognizes some of them—the ones blocked out elegantly on his nameplate at school with the awesome frog stickers; the ones looped in Mother's hand on the envelopes Father makes him take to the mailbox before he can play outside after school; the ones that say in solid black ink that he is an energetic/animated/full-of-life_-_child.

Which can be a good thing, really, so long as it's put to good and productive endeavors. Says his elementary school principal in his last week of freedom.

The second is that the dojo is in-his-backyard-close.

The third is that his parents and Sarutobi are very good friends. How it happens is a story that is long and nonsensical, involving strange weather and burning trees. It's really not worth the listen.

The fourth is that the dojo is a very good dojo. Extraordinary, actually; people send their children from all over the prefecture to attend.

Orochimaru's parents are not, apparently, one of them.

"You never asked," he says the first day of junior high and flips the next page in his book while Jiraiya seethes in the seat right behind him. "I'll save you a seat on the train home."

"What are you doing?" Jiraiya asks through clenched teeth as soon as the teacher turns his back to the class and starts writing equations on the whiteboard.

Orochimaru turns his head, slightly, and replies, "I presume your parents have not instilled in you the value of education."

Jiraiya scowls. The teacher chooses that moment to turn around and ensure notes are being taken, so Jiraiya leans back into his own seat and crushes a new black ballpoint in his fist. His pristine notebook is open to graphic, heavy lines that have nothing to do with any equations, but they look enough like productivity from a distance that the teacher turns back around.

Jiraiya leans forward over Orochimaru's shoulder again. "Cut the bullshit. You're _smart._"

"I could," Orchimaru says and taps his pencil eraser against his notebook's spine, "choose a more academically accomplished school and spend the next three years completely engrossed in intellectually demanding coursework in all subject areas."

Orochimaru's notebook has sketches, too, delicate lines, precise shapes that remind Jiraiya of health and science specials he skips over on the television, trying to find good cartoons.

Orochimaru's eyes meet Jiraiya's. "I suppose."

* * *

Aikido with Orochimaru is hell. Two hours a day, four days a week, he learns the fastest and the most on the mat and in the books (because it's about the _mind_, too) and does it with an ease that puts the art to shame.

School with Orochimaru is a slow, torturous lesson in humility. Jiraiya doesn't much care about the math and the science and the history, though, and if he can read on grade-level in English or Japanese, he's never done it three kilometers any direction from the school.

Jiraiya trades in his gi for trunks and goggles the first day his second year of junior high and stays after until 6:42 even though practice ends at 6:15.

"You," Tsunade says as they wait in the train station the day before their first meet, "are going to get your ass kicked."

If Jiraiaya had a dime…

But he doesn't. And he usually doesn't bother arguing, either, but it's _Tsunade_, who sits beside him in class and uses all his money at Culture Day and gives him sweets at lunch, so he's willing to make an exception this time, except—

"I think Jiraiya will win over everyone," Orochimaru, displaced in his immaculate uniform like it's still nine in the morning— Orochimaru says, "eventually."

"What do _you_ know?" Then Jiraiya frowns because his hair is still wet on his shoulders from his shower and the station is cold and the train hasn't arrived even though it's almost 7:14 and really, Orochimaru had no business at school. "Why are you still _here?_"

Tsunade at her worst around Orochimaru like every other girl at school when she doesn't even _like _him rolls her eyes. She turns toward the other boy and levels insanity on Jiraiya's head. She asks Orochimaru, "So you'll be there tomorrow, right?"

Orochimaru smiles without looking at her. "I have nowhere else to be."

7:15, and the train finally rolls in three minutes later. Jiraiya's hair isn't any closer to dry than it was half-an hour ago, and Tsunade's been talking physics to Orochimaru right over Jiraiya's head (in a very literal sense, Jiraiya's the shortest of the three). Jiraiya just wants to go _home_.

He darts for the train doors. Unfortunately—and he usually doesn't have to deal with this in swimming, because Tsunade's a girl and he's a boy—Tsunade's faster than him. She grabs the strap of his backpack and hauls, and damn it, she's strong, too, so he can't do anything except be hauled through the thin evening commute crowd and to the end of the train compartment. Tsunade drags him into the bank of seats, four bright red plastic squares and rectangles squished parallel to the aisle, and sits down beside him. Then she pulls Orochimaru down into the seat beside her, which, of course, doesn't take much persuasion on her part at all.

Jiraiya stares at the train walls. The walls are whitewashed in paint and fluorescent lights, no relent to the essential pain a casual visual encounter brings. Jiraiya keeps staring.

Beside him, Tsunade winds one arm around Orochimaru's neck and leans close. She throws her left leg over her right, and her uniform skirt rides up her thigh. Her foot bounces against Orochimaru's knee.

One of the other passengers—blue suit, brown glasses, slouching shoulders, dictionary salaryman—glances at them. He scurries further down the compartment where he apparently thinks he's suddenly gone invisible because he proceeds to gawk, eyes wide and brows low in righteous disapproval. Probably thinking about young lust and exhibitionism .

Jiraiya flips him off.

* * *

They're _not _friends.

* * *

Kairi's giggling gives Jiraiya a headache. He smiles anyway when she looks back and bats her eyes because school assemblies are still boring four years from their introduction in junior high, and she'll let Jiraiya slide his hands up her skirt right there in front of everyone, if he wants.

Orochimaru walks silent beside him, smiling that smug smirk like he knows what Jiraiya's thinking and thinks it's stupid and—

It _is _stupid. Jiraiya can hear the principal around the next corner, but there's one last corridor off the hall before then. He grabs the back of Orochimaru's blazer. Jiraiya drags Orochimaru from the crowd, past empty locker rooms with closed doors, turns the corner at the other end, and slams him against the wall as soon as they clear the door. Inside the new corridor is dark.

Jiraiya balls a fist in Orochimaru's blazer, smirks, and asks, "Jealous?" Or plans to, at least, but Orochimaru beats him to the smirk and lifts a brow for good measure.

"I suppose backstage _is _better than the bleachers. I'm rubbing off on you." Orochimaru's staring at Jiraiya's fingers twisted in his silk school emblem like he can see black stains when all he's seeing is gold and green.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying," Orochimaru says and feels the rake of metal and plastic down his back as his feet leave the hardwood floor, Jiraiya shoving him further up the wall like strength to make up the five-centimeter height difference. Jiraiya doesn't know he's shoved Orochimaru's shoulder right in to the control box hard enough to bruise or he'd push harder. "You're a failure. And it's your aversion to the acquisition of knowledge that causes you to fail."

Jiraiya says, "Fuck you," like "shut up." Then Jiraiya kisses him, but not to stop Orochimaru talking because Orochimaru wouldn't, would just bite his retort against Jiraiya's teeth, and that could hurt. Jiraiya hasn't forgotten.

Over the sound of his skin on Orochimaru's, loud and clear, Jiraiya can hear the other students moving chairs and bumping elbows, can hear name-calling and complaints.

Jiraiya's head drops to Orochimaru's shoulders, and Jiraiya's hands drop under Orochimaru's blazer, and Orochimaru laughs, "You'd blow me right here, if I wanted."

Jiraiya presses, "You think?" and the blazer falls to Orochimaru's waist. Jiraiya can smell ink, Orochimaru always smells like ink. The crowd is voices, voices, voices riding over the principal trying to call order.

"Know," Orochimaru corrects, and then Jiraiya kisses him again, and they both know to keep breathing at this point, but Jiraiya's crushing him, pushing him into the wall, and just because he knows doesn't mean he remembers.

Orochimaru wraps his own fingers into Jiraiya's shirt –"You like being in the spotlight" –and braces his knuckles in the divide in Jiraiya's ribcage.

"Like you don't," Jiraiya bites back, clips the hollow between neck and shoulder with teeth whet like knives, and Orochimaru yanks him back to eyelevel by his tie.

"You underestimate the position behind the scenes."

Jiraiya snorts, "Whatever," and rocks his hips into Orochimaru's. He puts his head back down.

* * *

Jiraiya fucking hates the rain.

The tipoff is—Orochimaru's not in school. Orochimaru's _always _in school, unless he's skipping with Jiraiya, the pressures of senior year, you know, strictly for Jiraiya's continued mental health.

"Of course," Orochimaru always smirks.

Jiraiya's first class with Orochimaru is Literature right before lunch. It's three hours into the day. Still, he might've noticed if he hadn't been making eyes at Nami and her ilk _before_ the principal standing at the front desk with his teacher had said, "If I may have a few minutes of your time…?"

In the principal's office, Sarutobi is sitting in the other chair in front of the desk. Jiraiya knows better than to think that means Sarutobi's on his side.

Sarutobi says, "We want to talk to you about Orochimaru."

Orochimaru only takes the Literature class on level because his favorite class is Biology and Jiraiya's an idiot.

The principal says, "It's not like Orochimaru to miss class." At least not when Jiraiya's not missing class, too.

One of them, both of them explain Orochimaru's uncle didn't call him in sick, they've tried phoning the house themselves but no one has answered, Orochimaru's always been popular, but he's never been close to any of his classmates except Jiraiya. He's always been so studious, so full of potential, so hard-working, maybe he ever mentioned feeling overwhelmed? No? Well maybe Jiraiya knows where Orochimaru might be?

"No." Jiraiya asks, "Can I go now?"

Sarutobi and the principal share a look. Sarutobi's older than the last time Jiraiya was his student. His hair is more white than brown. Jiraiya tells Orochimaru sometimes Sarutobi's going to give the dojo to him, if he wants, but Orochimaru always tells him to stop joking.

"Of course."

Jiraiya stands from the chair, the crease of his school slacks none too perfect this morning freshly broken and twisted right below his knee. Jiraiya walks out of the principal's office. He walks through the teachers' room, then the doors of the front office. Jiraiya turns right and walks out of the school.

It's pouring rain outside. Jiraiya's soaked by the time he gets to the end of the block, and everywhere he looks is grey even with the streetlights on. Jiraiya walks.

He doesn't walk to Orochimaru's house. Passing it a block over to where he's going he sees red lights against the sky. He can hear sirens. Still not going to Orochimaru's house, Jiraiya runs.

Jiraiya's dad quit his job at the library after Jiraiya's elementary principal put his parents' number on speed dial, and he opened his own bookstore so he could be more independent and spend time with his son or – something, Jiraiya's not really sure and doesn't really care. He just knows his dad is home weird hours, like in the middle of the school day, which is good because Jiraiya has no idea where the spare key is hidden.

Jiraiya goes upstairs to his bedroom. It's empty. The window over the sloping roof of the garage is closed and locked. Jiraiya's getting water all over the tatami floor, just standing and staring at his bed.

No one is in the bedroom except for Jiraiya, but the window.

Jiraiya leaves his room and goes to the bathroom.

The bathroom down the hall from his bedroom only has a tub. On the tub, on the wall on the opposite side of the faucet, Orochimaru is sitting in his underwear. Orochimaru is thin, his shoulder blades and the space between his vertebrae are outlined by water.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Jiraiya hisses and goes right back out of the bathroom. He goes to the stretch of the hallway that opens over the foyer and bellows, "I need towels!"

His dad's voice bounces back, twice as loud, "Laundry room!"

That's all the way downstairs. "Well, are they clean?"

"See for yourself!"

Jiraiya goes back into the bathroom. He slams the door behind him. Then he turns on Orochimaru.

"My uncle almost died," Orochimaru says in greeting. His hair is down. Usually he has to pin it up, the same easy twist and pile he's been doing for the past twelve years, familiar the way his hair finally stops somewhere around his pointy elbows isn't. It's inappropriate for school, a disadvantage in close combat.

"You're such a pain the ass," Jiraiya accuses, and nearly chokes himself trying to remove his tie. He tosses it down once it's finally loose, and the tie ends up under his feet. He kneels beside Orochimaru, rolls his unbuttoned shirt sleeves up away from all the moisture, and scowls. "So fucking dramatic."

Orochimaru is stiff. "I'm leaving," he says, and Jiraiya lunges. Jiraiya's hands go around Orochimaru's arms and his left knee goes into a puddle of rainwater. Orochimaru doesn't fight back. Jiraiya hadn't counted on that, though, and his momentum carries Orochimaru's head into the sharp intersection of the walls. Jiraiya thinks it probably hurts, but Orochimaru doesn't say anything about it. Just stares at the ceiling and blinks once.

Jiraiya hisses, "They _interrogated_ me, 'What's wrong with Orochimaru?' like I have any damn idea, you fucking skip school and they think I know you're _breaking into my house_—"

"I used the spare," Orochimaru corrects.

"—it's storming, I had to walk through that shit, there are _police_ outside your _house_, my dad doesn't even know you're here, what the hell? And now you want to leave?"

"That's not why I skipped school," Orochimaru amends, as if that's the most important part of the story, and him sitting almost naked in Jiraiya's bathroom is just a minor footnote.

"What's going on?" Jiraiya demands.

Orochimaru tilts his head to the side so his bangs slide out of his eyes.

"I didn't say you had to leave," Jiraiya yells, "just fucking explain." Jiraiya gulps and exhales, trying to think.

Orochimaru hasn't told him anything. Except—

" What happened to your uncle?" Not that Orochimaru has ever seemed to like the man.

"I tried to kill him."

Jiraiya's silent after that, so Orochimaru says again, "I'm lea—" and Jiraiya actively tries to crack Orochimaru's head against the wall a second time.

"And just where the fuck are you leaving to?" Jiraiya snaps.

"Colorado."

"Colorado," Jiraiya echoes, and all he hears is _very far away. _No, fuck, he knows this, Orochimaru wants to go to America, fine, so does half their school. He's not even being original. Jiraiya tries not to roll his eyes. "What the fuck are you going to do in Colorado?"

"Live." Orochimaru gives him a look. "I didn't hurt him," he explains.

Jiraiya sputters, "You just said you tried to kill him!"

Orochimaru's eyes narrow, and it's really unfair he's disappointed in Jiraiya, but at least he finally seems like he's in the same room when he bites back, "I didn't even touch him."

"What, you just politely asked him to drop dead?" It wasn't the kind of thing Orochimaru would do. Too direct, too blunt.

Orochimaru's eyes are still narrowed. "He always did have a weak heart." He's not being metaphorical.

"You did." And Orochimaru's uncle doesn't like taking his medications. "What did you tell him?"

Orochimaru licks his lips.

Jiraiya starts panicking.

"I told him," Orochimaru informs Jiraiya agreeably, "that I let his boss fuck me, and his boss offered to give him a promotion for it, and I said no."

Jiraiya's hands tighten around Orochimaru's arms because he wants to punch him, and he doesn't know if it's true, and it hurts, but he hasn't gotten an answer yet.

"I told him that I'd gotten a scholarship from the university and I could do actual research in two years, I could co-author anything I wanted, and I turned them down because I didn't want to be on the same half of the fucking planet as him. I said I had always hated him, and if my parents had known I would be stuck with him at their deaths, they would have taken me with them."

This time, Jiraiya doesn't hold back. Because it's already happened, and there's nothing either of them can do about it, but Orochimaru wanted to. Wanted to take away the last eleven years.

Jiraiya's fist goes into Orochimaru's stomach, and Orochimaru doubles over with a gasp.

"You son of a bitch," Jiraiya says calmly, and Orochimaru replies, winded, "Like you'd know."

Jiraiya withdraws, and Orochimaru collapses on his hands and knees in the tub, breathing rapid and shallow.

There's blood rushing in Jiraiya's ears that muffles the sounds of Orochimaru sliding around the tub, pushing himself back up to the seat on the edge, opening his mouth and talking. Orochimaru says, "I was never going to stay."

"And what the fuck am I going to do in Colorado?" Jiraiya asks, still calm, but he's angry. Like always, Orochimaru didn't even ask, he just made up his mind and now he's going to do it. Jiraiya doesn't doubt that all. Orochimaru can do anything with enough time.

Orochimaru holds one arm over his abdomen, wheezing stopped, bruise beginning. He slouches into the corner and just holds Jiraiya's gaze until Jiraiya wanders if he'll pretend Jiraiya wasn't asked because Jiraiya wasn't invited, but no. Orochimaru answers, "Whatever you want. I don't control you."

"You really don't." Jiraiya kicks his tie away and stands up. He leaves the bathroom and goes down the stairs, footsteps thundering.

Jiraiya's dad steps out of the door to the family room when Jiraiya's on the bottom steps, an interception. Jiraiya pauses. Not a long time, just a momentary hitch in his step, but it creates an opening.

"You can't just keep leaving school like this," his dad says gravely, but Jiraiya pushes past him with as little physical contact as he can manage and keeps going down the hall.

His dad looks confused, but not angry. Not yet. So Jiraiya skipped school again, so what? It wasn't as if Jiraiya had been on the fast track to the University of Tokyo before this evening.


End file.
